Dominant or Recessive? An Austrian monk named Gregor Mendel introduced the world to genetics through his experiments on crossbreeding pea plants. Mendel, born on this date in 1822, began investigating plants in the monastery's experimental garden in 1856. For 7 years, he studied more than 28,000 pea plants by analyzing their height, pod shape and color, flower position, seed shape and color, and flower color. Mendel found that the traits that the offspring plants received from their parents could be predicted mathematically. His Laws of Heredity produced two terms that are still used today: dominant genes and recessive genes. Mendel published his findings in 1866, but his theories were not circulated in the field of science until 1900, some 16 years after his death.
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